Main menu

Monthly Archives: August 2012

gentle consistent
crash of water on rocks,
sun moving the shade
through the pines,
the silhouette of a chipmunk
dashes across the stream bank,
wind dances trees.
this place needs nothing from me.
offers only itself.
i’m here running from the place
that needs everything.
i’m afraid of being stripped dry,
lost,
unprepared,
not up to the task.
here i am held.
this glen is willing to shelter me –
but my work is in the other world,
the human world.
the place that scares me,
that needs me.
this patch of trees is only
a resting point
a brief sojourn to the wilds.
that other place calls me
and i am learning
to call it home.

School has started and I have a new class of creative writing through NF Vision, the group is still forming. This is my version of yesterday’s writing practice. . .

I have to listen beneath the human sounds, but the natural world is still here. I’m sure that this applies to me as well. The animal nature of hunger and the need for sleep. The things that inexplicably I like or would rather avoid – is that a human tendency or an animal one?

A small black spider comes into focus. It is sitting on a piece of gravel – catching my eye with its movement. I wonder if it can feel me notice it – if that makes it nervous? Attention soothes my cat – he doesn’t like to be in the house by himself and likes a good pet before he crunches on his cat-food. He is tamed from the feral cat his mother was.

I will not tame the spider. I’m surprised by a jump maybe five times the length of his body and it doesn’t even look like it took any effort. A fly lands on my bag, it feels less wild than the spider, perception is a curious thing.

The poorly orchestrated cacophony of birds is audible if you listen beneath the tread of tires. It’s as if they are a middle school band with new instruments. There is a wild beauty in the sound, but it is not human music.